Iconic painting of 'Chinese Girl' will return to S. Africa
Source: Agencies |
March 22, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
VLADIMIR Tretchikoff's iconic painting "Chinese Girl," said to be one of the most reproduced in the world, is going home to South Africa after more than half a century in a private Chicago collection, Bonhams auction house announced yesterday after a record sale in London.
The picture of the beauty with a green-hued skin, ruby-red lips and luscious black hair, featured on mugs, T-shirts, posters and wallpaper, sold on Wednesday for 982,050 British pounds (US$1.5 million) - double the expected price and a record for Tretchikoff or any South African artist, according to Giles Peppiatt, director of South African art at Bonhams.
"This was an exceptional price for a work which really does merit the word 'iconic,'" Peppiatt said. "And it's very happy news to hear that it is going home."
Bonhams was packed to standing room only Wednesday with 120 buyers, interest having been generated by putting the painting on display in recent months in South Africa, the United States and Europe.
The winner of the auction is British diamond jewelry magnate Laurence Graff, who told Bonhams that the painting will be displayed at the Delaire Graff wine estate outside Stellenbosch in the Cape Winelands, which has luxury lodges decorated by other works in his collection.
Manchurian-born Tretchikoff escaped from Soviet Russia and emigrated to South Africa after World War II. Along the way he lived in Shanghai, where he worked as an advertising and commercial illustrator in the 1930s. His website says the artist started the famous portrait in Java in 1946.
But biographer Boris Gorelik, for this forthcoming book "Incredible Tretchikoff," went to South Africa in search of the inspiration for the painting, and in 2010 discovered Monika Sing-Lee in Cape Town. She told him Tretchikoff spotted her while she was working at her uncle's launderette at Cape Town and begged to paint her. She said she was paid about 130 pounds, at today's prices, for two weeks of modeling.
Gorelik notes the unmistakable resemblance between the painting and photographs of Sing-Lee in 1952.
Tretchikoff wrote, "Somehow perhaps I caught the essence of Chinese womanhood," in his biography "Pigeon's Luck," co-written with Anthony Hocking. "I had a lot of experience to draw on. ... My mind and soul went into this painting, and perhaps there lies the explanation for its success."
Tretchikoff sold the painting in 1951 to Mignon Buehler, the daughter of a Chicago businessman. She paid US$2,000, then considered a lot of money, Bonhams said.
The picture of the beauty with a green-hued skin, ruby-red lips and luscious black hair, featured on mugs, T-shirts, posters and wallpaper, sold on Wednesday for 982,050 British pounds (US$1.5 million) - double the expected price and a record for Tretchikoff or any South African artist, according to Giles Peppiatt, director of South African art at Bonhams.
"This was an exceptional price for a work which really does merit the word 'iconic,'" Peppiatt said. "And it's very happy news to hear that it is going home."
Bonhams was packed to standing room only Wednesday with 120 buyers, interest having been generated by putting the painting on display in recent months in South Africa, the United States and Europe.
The winner of the auction is British diamond jewelry magnate Laurence Graff, who told Bonhams that the painting will be displayed at the Delaire Graff wine estate outside Stellenbosch in the Cape Winelands, which has luxury lodges decorated by other works in his collection.
Manchurian-born Tretchikoff escaped from Soviet Russia and emigrated to South Africa after World War II. Along the way he lived in Shanghai, where he worked as an advertising and commercial illustrator in the 1930s. His website says the artist started the famous portrait in Java in 1946.
But biographer Boris Gorelik, for this forthcoming book "Incredible Tretchikoff," went to South Africa in search of the inspiration for the painting, and in 2010 discovered Monika Sing-Lee in Cape Town. She told him Tretchikoff spotted her while she was working at her uncle's launderette at Cape Town and begged to paint her. She said she was paid about 130 pounds, at today's prices, for two weeks of modeling.
Gorelik notes the unmistakable resemblance between the painting and photographs of Sing-Lee in 1952.
Tretchikoff wrote, "Somehow perhaps I caught the essence of Chinese womanhood," in his biography "Pigeon's Luck," co-written with Anthony Hocking. "I had a lot of experience to draw on. ... My mind and soul went into this painting, and perhaps there lies the explanation for its success."
Tretchikoff sold the painting in 1951 to Mignon Buehler, the daughter of a Chicago businessman. She paid US$2,000, then considered a lot of money, Bonhams said.
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